Our weekday breakfasts are usually hurried as we get ready to make our way to work and get on with our day ahead. So on weekdays, its usually a couple of slices of buttered toast, a cup of coffee and a fruit or some cereal or porridge and a fruit. So over the weekend, I feel its only fitting to have a more leisurely and stepped-up-a-notch type of breakfast. Some of you will remember that one of these types of breakfast is a helping of pancakes. Another such fairly simple, yet very satisfying breakfast option for me is French Toast.

There are a few variants to this basic French toast that I’ve tried and I’ll list them at the bottom of the post. Something that I’ve been longing to try is a stuffed French toast. I seriously hope I get around to trying that sometime soon; I have so many ideas for those. This basic recipe I picked up from watching my mother in the kitchen. People find it hard to believe that when I was a kid, I didn’t fancy spending much time in the kitchen watching my mother cook. One exception was when she was making something sweet. So when she was making us French toast for breakfast or when we were making goodies to go on the Christmas platter, it was hard to get me out of the kitchen. Till this day, I really enjoy making the sweeter stuff, desserts, cakes, cookies etc. Its the everyday cooking that sometimes leaves me lacking inspiration.

Anyway back to the French toast. What I really like about making this at home is that you get to decide what flavors you want to work with and just how sweet you’d like it to turn out. When frying the slices of bread be sure to let it color a little. Its the browning that caramelizes the sugar and gives it a delightful crunch.

What’s your favorite French Toast recipe? Drop in a line in the comments section and let me know. I’d love to try some new variants.

French Toast

(This recipe should make enough to dip about 4-6 slices of bread)

4-6 slices of bread

1 egg

1/2 cup of milk

Sugar, to taste

A few drops of vanilla extract

Butter / oil to fry

Heat a knob of butter or a little oil in a pan.

Whisk the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla till well combined. Use a shallow bowl that is wide enough to fit the slices of bread in.

Dip the slices of bread in this mix, one at a time to cover well on both sides and soak in some of the liquid. I usually do a double dip on both sides.

Carefully place the slice in the hot pan and let it cook on a medium flame till it caramelizes a little. Flip and cook the other side as well.

If your griddle or pan is large enough, you can do multiple slices at a time. You’ll finish off faster.

Enjoy it warm with a nice cup of coffee.

If you’d like, you can drizzle some honey over the slices when you’re ready to eat. Don’t drizzle the honey before hand, it will make your toast soggy. If you don’t fancy honey, you could dust it with some powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar as well.

Variants

– You can substitute the vanilla with some cinnamon powder. You could also use a combination of both.

– You can also substitute the vanilla with some freshly grated nutmeg.

Both this variants are gloriously flavorful. Try them all and see which one you prefer.